Mil Maskaras was the first luchador I’d ever seen. He was part of the old WWF, back in the days of Andre the Giant and Jimmy ‘Superfly’ Snuka. Last night, I could’ve sworn that was Mil Maskaras under that floppy straw hat, telling a story about how he and several thousand other ‘players’ conspired to manipulate the outcome of the elections. Only, it wasn’t Mil Maskaras, of course; just some guy called ‘Robin.’
As it turns out, ‘Robin’ is the lead player in yet another over-wrought variation of the ancient theme of “Hindi Ako Natalo! (Nadaya Ako!)” What makes him so entertaining is that he has introduced a couple of twists to what would have been a tired storyline.
First, his character is an unapologetic operator – brazenly declaring himself a COMELEC employee and claiming to have access to hundreds, if not thousands of PCOS machines that were used to rig the elections; and second, his motivation for coming out isn’t guilt, it’s greed. He wants revenge for getting stiffed by his alleged client who, conveniently enough, is also in close contention for Vice-Presidency.
But ‘Robin’s’ believability starts to crack when you consider his claims more closely.
One: he says that there are thousands of ‘players’ with (presumably) an equal number of PCOS for use in rigging the polls.
Consider this: Where did those PCOS machines come from? Every single PCOS machine ordered by the COMELEC is accounted for, including those that were burned in Miag-ao, Iloilo. Did a separate shipment come in? Considering the large numbers of PCOS needed for the operation described by ‘Robin,’ it is scarcely believable that such a shipment would have gone unnoticed.
Two: he says that the Player PCOS machines sent in pre-fabricated outcomes to the COMELEC Central Server, thereby boxing out the transmissions from the real PCOS machines.
Consider this: The results received by the Central Server from PCOS machines are only back-up in nature. The primary transmission is to the municipal canvassing stations. So, if the Player PCOS sent data to the Central Server but not to the municipal canvassing stations, there would be a discrepancy that would be immediately apparent.
Consider also that the Election Returns are printed BEFORE electronic transmission of results. So, where are Robin’s ERs? And even assuming he has them, how did he get them to the precincts that he rigged with his Player PCOS? Without those ERs, the transmitted results (from the Player PCOS) would be unacceptable to the watchers at the municipal canvassing stations; a stink would have been raised mere hours after the close of voting.
Consider also that ‘Robin’ made no mention at all of sending fake results to the PPCRV/KBP server, or the servers of the dominant majority party or the dominant minority party.
Consider also that the encryption of the PCOS cannot be spoofed since it is randomly generated from too many variables which themselves are randomly occurring.
And finally, consider also that when the canvassing system receives two transmissions purporting to be from the same source, it HOLDS both transmissions until a human system administrator can evaluate the situation and clears the warning flag. As he described it, ‘Robin’s’ player PCOS completely prevents the actual PCOS transmission from even arriving at the canvassing system!
Third, he claims that votes were stolen from other Presidential candidates and even gives figures! 5 million taken from this candidate, 4 million from that one, and 2-3 million from another. Now it stands to reason that if you’re going to give figures like that, you’re proceeding from a knowledge of what the actual figures were. In other words, you must know exactly how much a presidentiable got, before you can quantify how much you stole from him. But in ‘Robin’s’ story, the Player PCOS prevented actual figures from even getting through! In other words, there were no actual votes received, just the fabricated ones. So how could he say how much was stolen from who?
And then of course, there’s the circumstances surrounding the revelation.
The target is clearly Binay. ‘Robin’ spared no effort exonerating Villar, whom he called ‘kuripot.’ Weird, considering the money that Villar had been spending throughout his campaign. He obviously wanted the Presidency real bad, but even after spending all that money in pursuit of it, he balks at an expenditure that promised to deliver the Presidency to him, lock, stock, and barrel.
This story pushes the smoking gun at Binay. I suppose it is merely coincidence that Binay is also currently locked in the fight of a lifetime? Weird, because if I had spent that much money, I would not jinx the outcome by getting niggardly at the last minute. It’s bad strategy and abysmal common-sense.
Ahh… but then again, bad strategy and abysmal common-sense were also the hallmarks of Mil Maskaras. He was a flamboyant wrestler, for sure. Just like ‘Robin’ is a flamboyant tattletale. But just as Mil Maskaras ultimately lacked the brains and the brawn to become a world champion luchador, it would seem that so too is ‘Robin’s’ expose devoid of all substance. In fact, the more you listen to him, the more you get the sense that he is only taking advantage of the fact that only a few people can actually make sense of what he’s saying – and realize that he isn’t actually saying anything of sense.
The rest of us just respond to the ominousness of the news, to the unsettling confidence that he seems to have, leading us to nod our heads sagely and ignorantly whisper – like lemmings in the dark – ‘sounds plausible.’